Orthogonal neural encoding of targets and distractors supports multivariate cognitive control

The complex challenges of our mental life require us to coordinate multiple forms of neural information processing. Recent behavioral studies have found that people can coordinate multiple forms of attention, but the underlying neural control process remains obscure. We hypothesized that the brain implements multivariate control by independently monitoring feature-specific difficulty and independently prioritizing feature-specific processing. During fMRI, participants performed a parametric conflict task that separately tags target and distractor processing. Consistent with feature-specific monitoring, univariate analyses revealed spatially segregated encoding of target and distractor difficulty in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Consistent with feature-specific attentional priority, a novel multivariate analysis (Encoding Geometry Analysis) revealed overlapping, but orthogonal, representations of target and distractor coherence in intraparietal sulcus. Coherence representations were mediated by control demands and aligned with both performance and frontoparietal activity, consistent with top-down attention. Together, these findings provide evidence for the neural geometry necessary to coordinate multivariate cognitive control.